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Top End Native Plant Society

February March 2019 Newsletter

General Meeting Times

The next TENPS meeting will be held on Thursday 21st March 2019 commencing at 7:30 pm. General meetings are held on the third Thursday of each month at Marrara Christian College, on the corner of Amy Johnson Avenue and McMillans Road. The meeting is followed by a chance to chat with other members and access the TENPS reference Library over a cuppa. Bring your plants along to swap, sell or have identified. The guest speaker presentation commences around 8pm. All are welcome. Field trips are usually on the weekend following the meeting. Details of upcoming events are provided in the newsletter, or check the TENPS website.

What’s in flower?

Asteromyrtus symphyocarpa photographed by Zig Madycki.

President: Russell Dempster 0459440665

Vice President: Zig Madycki

Secretary: Jan Herrmann

Treasurer: vacant

Publicity: vacant

Publications: Sarah Hirst

Public Officer:

Sean Bellairs

Librarian: Ian Morris

General Committee Members:

Sylvia Hurse

Webmaster: Sarah Hirst

PO Box 135 Palmerston NT 0831

Or email us: topendnativeplantsociety@hotmail.com

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Upcoming TENPS guest speakers

March 21st: Andy Peart, Gary Fox and Del Hunter will offer an insight into the traditional plant foods of the Kundjeyhmi People of Kakadu. Gary is one of the authors of the new bush tucker book An-Me-Arri-Ngun – The Food We Eat.

April 18th: TBA

May 16st: Jaylen topic TBA

TENPS Committee Meeting

Committee meetings are held every second month and members are most welcome to attend. The next committee meeting will be on the 8th May at 7:30 in Terry Mills Electoral Office in the Oasis shopping Centre.

NT Field Naturalist Club Events

Meetings are held at 7.45pm on the second Wednesday of each month except January at Charles Darwin University, in Blue Building 2 (see map below)

Field Trips are a great way to explore the best of Darwin area's nature spots in the company of like-minded people. These are usually held on the Sunday following the monthly meeting and often related to the topic of this meeting. Additional outings are held from time to time, and everyone is welcome.

TENPS January Meeting Report: Monarto Restoration Program by Travis

Messner

Travis worked at Monarto initially as a zookeeper but became one of the small team involved in the Monarto Restoration Program.

TENPS Field Trips & other events

Saturday March 23rd: Rozak House at Lake Bennett: A joint TENPS/NTFNC field trip. This hilltop property has many interesting flowering annual herbs. In particular, we will be searching for a small annual herb (Typhonium also known as a Stink Lily) along the ridge as the plants found here recently may be a species new

to science. To get there, head down the Stuart Highway and follow signs to Lake Bennett. Continue around the lake staying on Chinner Road and cross the causeway (overflow of the lake). Look out for the Rozak House sign on right immediately past the causeway and take care as the driveway is rather steep! Saturday April 20th: TBC Saturday May 18th: TBC

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Monarto Zoo covers an area of over 1000 hectares.

The bushland areas were quite badly degraded with little understorey due to overgrazing by rabbits and native wildlife was under pressure from cats and foxes.

The project was built around the following restoration stages:

1. Securing perimeter fence 2. Controlling and or eradicating feral

animals 3. Weed control 4. Providing habitat for native animals 5. Introducing native animals into Monarto

Perimeter Fence Upgrade

4000 overhang posts were cut, bent and drilled on site by the team and insulators were attached for electric wires.

The posts were bolted to the existing fence and strainer wires run for mesh attachment.

The top overhang of 900 x 50mm mesh was rolled out in 50m lengths.

Bottom skirt of 600 x 30mm mesh was also rolled out in 50m lengths and using the help of many volunteers and school groups.

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The fence skirt was buried after it was attached to complete the fence upgrade. Feral Control Program Target species included rabbits, hares, foxes and feral cats.

Rabbits and hares thrived in the open range enclosures where baiting was not possible in many of these areas due to risk to the zoo animals. There was also a strong fox presence on park, plus numerous entry holes under the perimeter fence. 31 bait stations were set up and the monitored using camera traps to confirm baits taken by foxes and cats.

Camera traps were also used to monitor areas with high fox activity such as dens. Rabbit warrens were marked by GPS with much of this work conducted by volunteers in a thorough search of the entire property.

A map showing all the rabbit warren locations within Monarto!

Warren destruction was carried out by gassing and ripping. Fund raising was so successful the project was able to purchase a backhoe for the purpose of ripping rabbit warrens.

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Rabbits were trapped in these traps and baited using 1080 in oats, with a shooting program also undertaken.

Bio-surveys were conducted to find out what wildlife was already there, and weed control was mainly via spraying. Revegetation

No nursery facilities existed so the project also designed and built a seed storage shed, and propagation area.

Which included greenhouses with nursery benches and irrigation.

Seed collection and storage in the purpose built shed. Native grasses were a key component for revegetation of the understorey.

Propagation of seedlings and tubestock in the nursery in preparation for replanting.

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The understorey was planted from a mix of seed by direct seeding with the cooperation of local farmers and using standard seed drilling equipment.

Holes for seedling tubestock were predrilled immediately after the direct seeding to prevent trampling of germinating seed.

3000 seedling tubes were planted with the help of lots of volunteers. This method meant the planting days were all pre-planned, irrespective of the weather, but smaller trial areas had been quite successful and losses were expected to be low.

Unfortunately Travis and the other members of the Monarto Revegetation Project have departed so Travis is unsure what the site looks like now or if the reintroduction of any native animals has occurred. He hopes to visit Monarto again soon and we hope to hear more about this project then.

Article and photos supplied by Travis Messner

Report on the March Plant Sale

On Saturday 9th March TENPS had another successful native plant sale at Woolworths Coolalinga. Tim and Travis of Territory Native Plants, Jess from Plants Direct, Russell Dempster, Sylvia Hurse, Paul Johns and Marj King provided plants for the stall.

Sales were once again excellent with some of the species that sold well listed here:

Acacia dunnii Acacia sp

Adiantum philippense Adansonia gregorii

Aidia racemosa Albizia lebbeck

Allosyncarpia ternata Banksia dentata

Buchanania arborecens Canavalia rosea

Celtis philippensis Clerodendrum floribundum

Drynaria quercifolia Grevillea sp

Glycosmis trifoliata Leea novoguineensis

Grevillea dryandri Maranthes corymbosa

Helicteres isora Meiogyne cylindrocarpa

Hibiscis meraukensis Sterculia quadrifida

Leptospermum madidum Syzygium armstrongii

Micromelum minutum Syzygium fibrosum

Microsorum grossum Terminalia ferdinandiana

Myristica insipida Terminalia microcarpa

Phaleria octandra

Piper macropiper

Schefflera actinophylla

Suregada glomerulata

Syzygium nervosum

TENPS volunteers Territory Native Plants

The Open Garden Scheme recommences in the 2019 Dry Season and TENPS is hoping to have a plant sale at an open garden at Howard Springs in August. Look out for more details soon.

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Drynaria quercifolia photographed by Russell Dempster in March 2019

“Schultze and Hoare: The Collector and the Illustrator” Exhibition

On Wednesday 6th February as part of the 150 year anniversary of Goyder’s arrival in Darwin the Northern Territory Library opened this exhibition. The opening event was well attended with over 40 people showing a great deal of interest resulting in the exhibition being extended until March 24. If you missed out you still have a little longer to see this interesting display.

From left to right: Jared Archibald from the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT who spoke about scientific collecting in the 19th century, and about the preserved animals from the MAGNT collection that form part of the exhibition.

Lon Wallis who’s research has shed light on the work of Frederick Schultze as the official naturalist on Goyder’s expedition of 1869. The exhibition was largely put together by Lon Wallis.

Ray Dundon a great-great-grandson of Frederick Schultze naturalist to the Goyder expedition who came to Darwin for this event after being contacted by Lon in the course of his research.

Phaleria clerodendron photographed by Russell

Dempster in March 2019 at Marrara Christian School.

Thysanotus banksii photographed by Zig Madycki

Abelmoschus moschatus photographed by Zig Madycki.

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